Are you smarter than an 11 year old? How many of these could you spell?

[RustyBear]

large
stunning
remarkable
collapsed
engulfed
descent
enormous
surrounded
protected
availabi lity
population
remain
various
scorching
several
traditionally
distinctive
carrying
unique
magical

These are the words from the Year 6 SATs spelling test today - I bet some of them would give a few of us trouble....

my yr 5 ds could definitely spell all of those... (and can spell definitely too).

Well, tbh I wasn't that sure either! I think they were supposed to find it funny that the parents were treating Norman's moving out so casually - giving his room to his sister, working out how much they would save not giving him pocket money etc - but I'm not sure most 10/11 year olds would find that 'funny'

ah. oh dear, don't think ds has that sort of humour....!

I thought it was funny! I think some of it may have gone over the average y6's head though.

Mollyroger...it wasn't the mum's letter I don't think, more the situation in general - and my most SEN boy wrote that it's funny that a boy ran away from home to his back garden. I hope he gets the mark for it - I thought that was a good answer.

These seem quite easy. The 11 year old is away this week so tested the 9 year old and he managed them all. Engulfed isn't a problem - it's obvious how to spell it.

unless you are dyslexic.....

I can spell them all, as long as I can write them down (have problems with spelling out loud).

All of them aged about 8.

I did struggle with jewellery though age 9.

I could spell all of them but more to the point so could dd who is 9 and in year 5. They don't seem problematical.

agree that these present little problem to the average non-dyslexic adult - would be different (as others have said) if things like definite, independent, lose, occurred etc. had been on the list.

Am constantly amazed at the number of people who seem to be incapable of spelling 'lose' correctly!

I sat in a room full of dyslexic/SN kids for this test and my heart just bled for them.

They'd just done the trainer report, coming up with great ideas that we had to rewrite, so the examiners could read them...then they got lumbered with spelings like these! Most of them struggled with words like blue, black and people in their reports. Giving them words like unique, enormous and magical in the spelling test part was a form of cruelty.

Made me seethe...one girl was gutted as she knew she hadn't got a single word right and she deflated like a baloon. Bloody SATS. Sooner they get rid of them the better imo.

Oops..sorry, spellings. My keyboard is a bit sticky after a juice spill

On a positive note the spelling test doesn't carry many marks squilly. Good Luck to your children

Whilst both my DCs would have found these fairly easy in Y6, I know of LOTS of children who would have struggled with many of these words, particularly words like unique, descent and availability.

The replies here just prove that the children of most Mumsnetters are not particularly representative of the general population.

As MRZ says, they don't carry many marks in the overall English test. I know of a girl who went to primary school with my DD and is, by her own admission, an atrocious speller, but is in the top English set at secondary school due to having strong comprehension and creative writing skills.

Squilly - unique was the only word ds got 100 per cent right - because he had once made a special point of learning that word

He cried, becaus he hates feeling 'stupid'.

He thought he had spelled large right too, but he used a J instead of g

Ah well, maths today, he loves maths and providing people marking realise that he oftn gets his 5s and 2s reversed - so 25 may well be 52 - he's predicted to do very well.

Thanks MrZ. It's not the result as much as the experience that worries me. My two readers are both bright as buttons.

One has buckets of self confidence and is able to distinguish between H the non reader and H the bright lad. My girl sees S the non reader as S the non-achiever. She thinks she has to be thick at everything because she's thick at reading/writing, etc (her words not mine btw).

These exams just reinforce that for her and make her feel more 'useless'. The fact that the spelling test counts for little score wise doesn't detract from the fact that these kids felt stupid for 45 minutes (or however long it took) and knew they wouldn't get anything right It's like asking us to do a test about something we know nothing about and don't even vaguely understand whilst our peers know all about it and sail through it. It's not great for self esteem.

and mollyroger, I feel so much for your little boy. My boy reader H has FLOWN through his maths today. I read for him and was able to annotate if he had any problems with the writing side of things (was this not facilitated for your child??) I think we would have been able to annotate 5's to 2's if it was obvious that that was the problem (though I'd have had to check that one, I guess, had it arisen, so don't quote me!).

H was finished half way through and rechecking his answers. Like I say...bright as a button.

Sorry for going on, but this really pushes my buttons....